Global South

The reading of the travaux préparatoires of Article XXI GATT indicates that the GATT Contracting Parties did not envisage that a global pandemic such as a virus could amount to a national security exception under the said Article. However, the drafters of GATT 1947 cannot be put to blame since no global health crisis has ever necessitated the applicability of the Article. The 2020 Corona virus (Covid 19) is an example of a global health crisis. In response to the crisis and in a bid to protect their nationals, states are restricting the exportation of medical related equipment. This amounts to quantitative restrictions which is a violation of the World Trade Organisation rules of trade. This paper analyses such measures in lieu of WTO member’s obligations.

Afronomicslaw.org is pleased to introduce the Afronomicslaw Academic Forum and to welcome a New Editor and three contributing editors effective immediately.

Apart from the challenges presented by the pandemic, governments in developing economies have the current difficulty of providing essential public goods and social services even during normalcy. How quickly economies recover after the crisis may depend on the nature of coping initiatives employed during the pandemic. It is therefore pertinent that governments (especially in the global South) revisit their free zone policy architecture to create a reliable alternative economy with which to stimulate the macro economy especially when the risks associated with sustaining economic activities in the customs territory may be too high.

On the 24th of March 2020, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) announced a US$3 billion facility to help its member countries weather the economic and health impacts of Covid-19. In this interview, Prof Ben Oramah, President Afreximbank, discusses this pandemic facility, the African Continental Free Trade Area, (AfCFTA) and more.

Welcome to this symposium on COVID-19 and International Economic Law in the Global South. The essays in this symposium came from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean, North America and Latin America. This symposium will last for a full four weeks because of the large number of good quality submissions we accepted.

Multi-Sided Music Platforms and the Law is a book that provides a well-informed, thorough and rigorous treatment of relevant legal issues from an African perspective, whilst never losing sight of the ‘broader picture’. As such, it is expected to benefit a diverse group of readers, as well as policy and law makers in Africa and abroad in tackling relevant legal conundrums effectively.

Recent years have seen a remarkable upturn in scholarship on copyright in Africa in general and its intersection with competition law and policy frameworks in particular. Multi-Sided Music Platforms and the Law takes the discussion further through a detailed examination of global platforms such as YouTube, SoundCloud and Facebook and the profound impact these firms have on the creative sectors and the economy more broadly of developing countries.

According to Professor Caroline Ncube in the foreword, this book is an important and timely contribution to the discussion of music platforms and is the first work that considers multi-sided platforms from the perspectives of copyright, competition and privacy under South African and Nigerian laws.

In this post, I argue that the 1991 UPOV Convention, which is the only UPOV Convention open for accession, is unsuited to Nigeria, principally because it provides a closed plant breeders rights system that favours (commercial) plant breeders, to the detriment of small scale farmers. Nigeria has over 70 per cent small scale farmers that stand to be side-lined by a UPOV-styled system. Accordingly, I urge the Nigerian Government to cease, or at the least delay, the ongoing legislative process.

The developmental indices of certain countries are immaterial to their compliance levels. Nevertheless, this paper argues that economic development cannot be divorced from economic crime, and for this reason, it is paramount for the SDGs to give this the attention it deserves.